Ch.X. Sec.IL] Patents. 185 which is new. Then it is said, that the patentee may put in aid the figures, but how can it be collected from the whole of these in what the improvement consists ? A person ought to be warned by the specification against the use of the particular invention, but it would exceed the wit of man to discover from what he is warned in a case like this." And if a patentee in the specification sum up the principle in which his invention consists; if this principle be not new the patent cannot be supported, although it appear that the application of the principle, as described in the specification, be new. In a late important case on this subject (a), the Court of Common Pleas held that where a person obtains a patent for a machine con- sisting of an entirely new combination of parts, though all the parts may have been used separately, in former machines, the specification is correct in setting out the whole as the inven- tion of the patentee : but if a combination of a certain num- ber of those parts have previously existed up to a certain point in former machines, the patentee merely adding other combi- nations, the specification should only state such improvements; though the effect produced be different throughout. But where the party obtained a patent for a new machine, and afterwards another patent for improvements in the said ma- chine, in which the grant of the former patent was recited, it was held that a specification, containing a full description of the whole machine so improved, but not distinguishing the new improved parts, or referring to the former specification, otherwise than as the second patent recited the first, was suf- ficient {b). And it seems to be unnecessary in stating a spe- cification of a patent for an improvement to designate precisely all the former known parts of the machine, and then to apply to these the improvement; but on many occasions it may be suf- ficient to refer generally to them. As, in the instance of a common watch, it may be sufficient for the patentee to say, take a common watch, and add or alter such or such parts, de- scribing them (c). So iQ falsity of any allegation in the specification will va- cate the patent. As if the patentee say, that by one process he (jan produce three things, and he fail in any one ; or if the spe- (a) 2 Marshall, R. 211. (c) Ibid. 107. (6) 11 East, 101. ' . cification
